Before Green Gables

Perhaps a better title would have been Anne's Depths of Despair. I stumbled across this book at Nichola's Books right after it was released in February. It was in the children's section, but I don't think this is a children's book. Its best audience is perhaps adults who grew up with Anne and are intrigued enough to take a chance on a prequel by a different author. I've spoken with a number of Anne fans who have no interest whatsoever in this book. They cringed and shuddered at the thought of a prequel. I recently read William Horwood's sequel to Kenneth Graham's The Wind in the Willows and enjoyed it very much. So I took the chance myself.

The novel is well researched. Time and place are very well mapped out. How household tasks were performed and the artifacts used to do this are all explained. We learn the origins of many things like Anne's imaginary friends Katie Maurice and Violetta, the source of her advanced vocabulary and how she learned to administer ipecac for croup. This is all satisfying to the Anne fan, but not really enough to make the journey through cruelty, alcoholism, tragic death and betrayal worth it.

This book, while compelling, is rather exhausting. Anne's life of horrendous drudgery and disappointment is very depressing. There are a few kindred spirits here and there but they have too little authority to rescue Anne from her life of toil and pain. When I finished this book I immediately re-read the first several chapters of Anne of Green Gables in order to see Anne safely to a better place.

Mei Li

Finished Mei Li by Thomas Handforth. This is the second book to win the Caldecott Medal, in 1939. It is the story of a small girl in China who sneaks away from her family to attend the New Year's Fair. She is continually scolded, especially by her brother, who says "what can a girl do?" She does what she wants, that's what she does. She asks a girl acrobat to balance her upside down in the palm of her hand, she feeds bean curd cake to a trained bear, has her fortune told and gives one of her lucky pennies to a beggar girl. She has a wonderful time. The story is a bit wacky, but probably fun for the target audience of 4-8 year olds. The drawings look like a combination of ink and charcoal. Once again I am reminded of Robert McCloskey's style.

I had to request this book through interlibrary loan. It came from the Pere Marquette District Library in Clare, Michigan, 144 miles Northwest of here. Markings inside the book suggested that it was once the Garfield Memorial Library. The book itself is large, 9.25 inches by 12.25 inches. As you can see it has a bright cover with a picture of Mei Li and her brother San Yu at the fair. The interior illustrations are black and white. This seems a shame since so much color is mentioned in the text, but I suspect that books with color illustrations were a bit pricey in 1939.

All Things Bright and Beautiful

Finished All Things Bright and Beautiful, the second book in James Herriot's series. I think I liked this one more than the first book All Creatures Great and Small. More time is spent on James tending to his various patients and their unusual and droll owners. This book is funny and charming. It is very interesting to consider what new drugs appeared that changed the veterinary world forever, antibiotics for example. Various bizarre and old fashioned remedies come to light, many suggested by the local farmers. It is a comfortable read populated by characters I know and love, especially Siegfried Farnon.

The Ballet Shoes

Finished Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild. People who saw me reading it asked, "Isn't that the book from You've Got Mail?" The answer is yes. When Kathleen Kelly has to close her children's bookstore she wanders into the children's section at the big, bad Fox Books megastore and overhears a woman asking a clerk to help her find "the shoe books." He is clueless and Kathleen steps in and tells the woman the author, several titles, and says "I'd start with Theater Shoes. It's my favorite, but it's out of print!" and she bursts into tears. The scene is poignant because it illustrates not only the death of the independent children's bookstore, but the disappearance of all the specialized knowledge that went with it.

Ballet Shoes was Streatfeild's first book, originally published in 1936. A wacky old paleontologist rescues a baby from a shipwreck. He adopts her and secures his widowed niece, her daughter and the daughter's nanny to live in his house and look after the baby Pauline. In his travels collecting fossils he picks up two more babies over the years, Petrova and Posy. He leaves on an expedition and does not return. Meanwhile the babies grow into little girls and the money he leaves for their care begins to run out. The girls eventually enroll in the Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training, to study performing arts in order to gain employment as children. They enroll for free and pay the academy a percentage of their earnings in return for their training. The girls take "Fossil" as their last name. The three Fossils support the family and learn quite a lot about the theater and themselves.

Works that they perform in include Alice in Wonderland, Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Richard III.

This book was hard to get into at first, but once they began performing and living paycheck to paycheck it became quite compelling. Each of the shoe books seems to feature orphans who must train and perform in order to survive in London. The books have a different cast of characters each time. Ballet Shoes was a fun read. I really felt the excitement of the characters as they went to auditions. I think I'd like to read other books in the series some time in the future.

Two Little Knights of Kentucky

Finished Two Little Knights of Kentucky by Annie Fellows Johnston. This is one of thirteen novels in The Little Colonel series. Originally published in 1899, the edition I have is a reissue by Applewood Books (who also did the vintage reissues of the original Nancy Drew books). It feature numerous illustrations and fun little inside cover flaps that have a paper doll and outfit one can cut out.

The Little Colonel series was extremely popular at the beginning of the twentieth century, but has fallen into obscurity. Set in the south, after the Civil War, the stories are very gentle, old fashioned and moralistic, but the portrayals of children and the scrapes they get into are very realistic. The stories are warm and sweet. This one in particular features children acting with concern for those less fortunate than themselves and taking integrity and honor very seriously.

My daughter very much enjoyed The Little Colonel when we read it aloud a number of years ago. Two Little Knights of Kentucky is the only other book in the series that I've seen in print. All of them are available for reading online. I hope to read them all some day.

Andy and the Lion

Finished Andy and the Lion by James Daugherty. It won the Caldecott Honor Medal in 1939. This is a simple picture book, very little text with expressive, possibly hyperbolic, but charming illustrations. Andy goes to the library and takes out a book about lions. He reads it very intently. Meanwhile a lion escapes from the circus and ends up with a large thorn in his paw. Andy stumbles upon him on his way to school and helps him by removing the thorn, then they part ways. Later in the story, while at the circus, one of the lions breaks free and runs ferociously into the audience heading right for Andy. Then suddenly they recognize each other and have a happy reunion. This reminded me a bit of Lyle, Lyle Crocodile, where Lyle is reunited with Mr Valenti his old Vaudeville partner. Also, something about the style of the drawings reminded me a little bit of Robert McCloskey's work.

Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

Finished Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace. This is the fourth book in the Besy-Tacy series. I read the other three to my daughter when she was much younger. Betsy, Tacy and Tib are now twelve, old enough to go downtown and have various adventures. Betsy visits the new Carnegie Library. She's has read all the books her family has at home, so her parents suggest that she visit the new library. She goes one Saturday, applies for a card and has some pocket money for lunch at the drugstore.

A number of plays come to Deep Valley. The first is Uncle Tom's Cabin. I found this ironic since I was reading Uncle Tom's Cabin myself at the time. Rip Van Winkle also comes and all the girls are able to participate in the performance. Other literary works mentioned are The Pickwick Papers (funny, I'm reading this right now too) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The series is set at the beginning of the twentieth century. Tib gets a ride in the first horseless carriage in town. These books were written and published in the 1940s and 50s. As the characters grow in age the reading level of the books advances. The illustrations were done by Lois Lensky. Lensky won the Newbery Award for Strawberry Girl in 1946. The Betsy-Tacy illustrations are simple line drawings. Lenski's illustrations for her own book are softer, more detailed charcoal drawings.

These books are based on Maud Hart Loevlace's own childhood. Deep Valley is modeled after Mankato, MN where there is a Betsy-Tacy Society and the houses that Maud (Betsy) and Frances "Bick" Kenney (Tacy) lived in have been restored. Portions of the restoration were performed by PBS's show "Hometime."

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Finished Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson. A best seller from 1939, it has recently been made into a film. I haven't seen the film yet. This is a Cinderella story of a shy, down on her luck spinster who is sent to the wrong address for a job interview. This mistake changes her entire life in one day. It's a charming, funny, fast-paced read. The edition I read is a reissue by Persephone Books. It includes the original line drawing illustrations. This is a fun, rainy day book.

Seven Simeons: A Russian Tale

Finished Seven Simeons: A Russian Tale by Boris Artzybasheff. It won the Caldecott Honor in 1938. The illustrations are very intricate colorful line drawings. They remind me of Fabergé Eggs. For a picture book the text is dense and lengthy. It's not a book that a small child could read independently. The story is interesting with plenty of surprises. I had to request an interlibrary loan of this book. It came from a junior college in Jackson, MI. They must have a good children's literature program.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Finished Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I've always wanted to read this book. I'm glad I finally got around to it. It was an excellent read. People have asked me if the language is antiquated. The answer is no. It's a very accessible, exciting and emotional novel. It was originally published in serial form in an abolitionist publication. When it was first published in book form the entire run sold out. It went on to be the best selling novel of the 19th Century. While Stowe does an excellent job of illustrating the horrors of slavery, she does so with characters who are very three dimensional. Simon Legree, the most loathsome and barbaric person in the novel is haunted by superstition and the memory of his pious mother. This made him much more credible as a character.

I recently started reading Maude Hart Lovelace's Betsey and Tacy Go Downtown, the fourth book in her series for children. Set in the early 1900s, the book tells the story of Betsy and Tacy and their friend Tib who are longing to go see the play Uncle Tom's Cabin which is being performed in their town. Funny coincidence.

Wikipedia suggests that anyone who is interested in American Literature and/or American history might find Uncle Tom's Cabin especially intriguing as a precursor to protest novels like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Not sure I'll ever be able to read that one.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds

Finished Four and Twenty Blackbirds. It is a collection of English and American nursery rhymes compiled by Helen Dean Fish and illustrated by Robert Lawson. It won the Caledecott Honor in 1938. Lawson was both an illustrator and writer of children's books. He was the first person to win both the Caldecott and Newbery Medals. The black and white illustrations are whimsical. The nursery rhymes themselves are for the most part unfamiliar. Like original fairy tales they are a bit shocking at times. In one, a fox bites the head off of a baby owl and sucks out all it's blood. Yikes!

Scarlet Sister Mary

Finished Scarlet Sister Mary by Julie Peterkin. From the back cover:

"Banned in Boston when it was first published in 1928, Scarlet Sister Mary is the story of a sexy, independent, and outspoken woman who lives to please herself. Abandoned by her husband, the heroine takes many lovers, loses her firstborn son, and eventually 'finds peace' as a church member, although she refuses to give up her love charm and her gold hoop earrings. Scarlet Sister Mary shocked readers with its sensual portrayal of a black woman's private life, but it was universally lauded for its honesty and courage. The first edition sold more than one million copies worldwide, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1929."

I really enjoyed this book. Peterkin has a very clear sense of all her characters and how they interact in this small community. It's been interesting to read this book while also reading Uncle Tom's Cabin. Both books incorporate a large amount of religion to illustrate good vs evil, but they employ it in indifferent ways. In Uncle Tom's Cabin evil is illustrated with sins of cruelty, where as Sister Mary is a sinner by means of carnal sin. I'm amused that the book was banned in Boston. As I read it I kept trying to figure out what was so wrong with it. Certainly characters in literature perform this sin all the time. Look at Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary. Sister Mary is happy with her lot in life and sins for the sake of pleasure, but she is a good, kind person. She is eventually punished for her sins and repents of them, so what's the problem?

Animals of the Bible

Finished Animals of the Bible, the very first winner of the Caldecott Medal in 1938. The book is made up of excerpts from The Old Testament and The New Testament. These excerpts include various references to animals. The illustrations, drawn by Dorothy P. Lathrop are nicely detailed. Some of the excerpts seem a bit scary to me and some are just plain strange. One from The Old Testament is entitled "Behemoth" and features a drawing of a hippopotamus with his mouth wide open. I've never read so much from The Bible before. Much like the first Newbery medalist, this book was a long haul for me.

On to the Caldecott Honor books for 1938...

The Dark Frigate

Finished The Dark Frigate by Charles Boardman Hawes. It won the Newbery Medal in 1924. An exciting adventure story with plenty of well drawn characters and suspense. The first half of the book reminded me quite a lot of Robert Lewis Stevenson's Kidnapped. The violence is a bit surprising, but I guess that's to be expected when a ship is "captured by a band of murderous pirates!" as it says on the front cover. The book ends with hints of more adventures to come. However, Hawes died before he even received the medal for this book. His book The Great Quest won the Newbery Honor in 1922, the first year the medals were awarded.

Light a Penny Candle

Finished Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchey. It was her first novel, published in 1982. I liked this book a lot. It reminded me a bit of A Murderous Innocence by Alison Scott Skelton. Both books are family sagas, taking place partially in Ireland, over several decades.

While the book was quite long (almost 600 pages), I breezed through it. Binchey's characters are engaging and realistic. The story itself is very compelling, although the end of the book seems a bit sudden and odd. It's almost as if it was getting too long and she had to find some way of winding it up. I look forward to reading her next book The Lilac Bus some time in the next year or so.